Judgment:
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.3151-CAT of 2003 Date of Decision: 19.02.2014 Union Territory, Chandigarh and others ..Petitioners Versus Darshan Lal and another ..Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE Mr.JUSTICE SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, CHIEF JUSTICE.
HON'BLE Mr.JUSTICE ARUN PALLI Present : Mr.Deepak Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioneRs.Mr.Aman Chaudhary, Advocate, for the respondents.
**** SANJAY KISHAN KAUL C.J.(Oral) The only issue on which the respondent No.1 approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench was qua the fixation of his pay scale.
The grievance made was that what had accrued to him under the statutory rules in existence at the relevant time was sought to be taken away by issuing subsequent rules with retrospective effect and passing the orders thereon.
2.
The Central Administrative Tribunal noticed in para No.5 of the impugned order that before they were to proceed to pass judgment on the merits of the controversy, the petitioner before us had produced a subsequent order dated 14.09.2002 which was in the form of a clarification pleading that the petition has become infructuous and that respondent No.1 before us fully protected.
The Central Administrative Tribunal, however, did not agree with this proposition and was of the view that the matter in question was fully covered by the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court referred to in the order and thus opining that once the benefit of statutory Rules of 1991 issued by Union Territory of Chandigarh itself had given certain benefits to respondent No.1, they could not be taken away.
Not only that the clarification was in favour of respondent No.1 to the extent that no recovery Sharma Ravinder 2014.02.19 17:27 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document Civil Writ Petition No.3151-CAT of 2003 [2].would be made and thus the impugned order was set-aside with a direction to pass a new order keeping in mind that once the Administration had itself done away with retrospectivity of the subsequent 1998 Rules, the vested right of respondent No.1 would not be taken away.
3.
We find from the order-sheet that there was no interim order passed by this Court and thus the authorities would have or ought to have passed an order as directed.
We are also informed that respondent No.1 retired on 28.02.2009 and thus the benefits of the impugned order would already be available with him.
If that has not been done, it is completely irregular.
4.
We are not inclined to interfere in the impugned order which only calls upon the Administration to follow its Rules as set out earlier which gave certain benefits of pay scale to respondent No.1 and that subsequent amendment to the Rules could not take away the benefits, with a direction to pass an appropriate order.
Needless to say that almost 12 years have elapsed since the impugned order was passed on 10.05.2002.
Dismissed.
(SANJAY KISHAN KAUL) CHIEF JUSTICE (ARUN PALLI) JUDGE1902.2014 ‘ravinder’ Sharma Ravinder 2014.02.19 17:27 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document